The Shape of Home: an ode to collective creativity. And the poetry of Al Purdy
16 Sep 2022

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

The Studio Theatre at Crow's Theatre is a long narrow room with the audience arranged in a semi-circle, three rows deep, around an impressive array of musical instruments. The theme is rustic with semi-finished boards covering the walls, and a functionally sturdy country dining table adjacent to the upright piano. The performers, five of the finest the city has to offer, stroll in casually and take up position. It is electrifying before a note is sung. The Shape of Home: Songs in Search of Al Purdy is a determinedly ramshackle, self-deprecating hybrid of biography, musical theatre, country and western, making of documentary, poetry reading, and Canadiana. But most of all it is an ode to creativity. Purdy is quoted as saying that life is short, far too brief, and that he doesn't understand why everyone doesn't spend that precious time writing poetry. After The Shape of Home, that should be amended to questioning why everyone doesn't spend their precious time exploring poetry through music.

The Shape of Home is initially unwieldy as it struggles to find a shape and narrative thrust. It is explained that when lockdowns struck, the quintet's gigs dried up. Isolation is an impossible existence for collaborative performers. One of them sent out copies of one of Purdy's books of poetry with the suggestion that they turn it into a song cycle. One narrative thread follows the progression of the creation of the songs. Another narrative thread attempts to be a biographical portrait of Purdy though it often has to resort to narration to sketch in details. The songs attempt to bridge the two narratives, the success of which is immaterial, the music is glorious enough to satisfy without context. And while we never do get a solid sense as to why our fab five felt compelled to explore Purdy or his work, we get an innate understanding of how working collectively, being together in a room, is an ecstatic experience following physical separation.

Purdy himself apparently hated working in a solitary vacuum. His hand-built A-frame house in the wilderness was an open house for the poets of the day. Much of the entertainment inherent in The Shape of Home comes from Purdy imitating other poets or taking their advice as he tries to find his voice. It is only when he gives up on pursuing financial success that he achieves artistic success, which leads to financial success. We don't learn any in-depth insights into Purdy, The Shape of Home is more interested in what he placed on the page. But the basic biographical details bleed through: he was a heavy drinker (“you can see that I am a sensitive man / And I notice that the bartender is a sensitive man too," a social animal, and a womanizer. And he has a statue in Queen's Park. We do finally get a sense of Purdy's power and why it appealed when the cast takes turns reading from the poem "The Country North of Belleville." When the line "this is the country of defeat" lingered, I suddenly remembered where I knew Purdy from. I grew up in the area north of Belleville and my father used to quote the poem to torment my mother who inexplicably loved that desolate and majestic part of Canada. Purdy writes of "those horrible beautiful trees." 

Musically the songs rarely stray from a folkish country feel though, with precise and lush harmonies cocooning the lead vocals, the lyrics are framed elegantly. Frank Cox-O'Connell (Hand to God, Rose, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet) uses an appealing conversational rasp in the most countrified vocals of the evening, but he excels in the dramatic readings, even the satirical or narratively required sections. Andrew Penner (Uncovered: The Music of Dolly Parton, Ghost Quartet) delivers a riveting rendition of a country blues number steeped in pain, the intimacy of the theatre allowing the blaze in his eyes to pierce. Beau Dixon (Uncovered: The Music of Dolly Parton, Ghost Quartet, The Father, Harlem Duet, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Hamlet) is a casual scene-stealer: tossing off poetically droll one-liners, singing in a consistently rich tone, playing the tuba, tickling and demolishing the ivories, and building to a rock star turn that is galvanizing and shockingly intense amidst the decorum that came before. 

Purdy's love life is mentioned only in passing—his long-suffering wife gets a mention or two and an erotic poem inspired by the libidinous Irving Layton is summarily mocked—and consequently the women in the quintet get less attention. Raha Javanfar is multi multi-instrumentalist with a sweet voice and can dance up a fiddling storm atop a table. I kept waiting for Hailey Gillis (Uncovered: The Music of Dolly Parton, Ghost Quartet, Rose, Onegin) to soar but it isn't that kind of show. Her vocals hold it all together, a solid support, but when she and Javanfar duet, face-to-face, supported (for a change) by male harmonies, it is breathtaking. So delicately beautiful that the audience collectively held their breath. Purdy's poetry, the cast, the narratives, and good old-fashioned showmanship unite in the closing number. A rip-roaring barnstormer churns through the theatre and we filter out into the night with an irresistible hooky chorus ricocheting in the pleasure center of our minds. They may not have found the grail that is Al Purdy, but we are honoured to have been part of the quest.